


A Pocketful of Posies

by yesterday4



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterday4/pseuds/yesterday4
Summary: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.  A look at the events leading up to Ruby becoming a witch.  Set in London in 1665.  Originally written after 'Malleus Maleficarum'.





	

He dies in her arms at seven o’clock in the evening. She knows because she hears the crier announce the time, voice echoing hale and hearty down the abandoned streets; knows because she’s been watching the sun dip lower out the only window in the room they occupy above his small shop. 

In life, his name had been Thomas Finch. When she met him, he’d been the apprentice for the blacksmith in the parish over. She remembers her first sight of him, his skin blackened with grease and soot, his smile that much brighter because of it. Remembers that he’d all but begged her older brother for an introduction, and then he’d said, “Doesn’t she shine brighter than any jewel you’ve ever seen?” on a wink. Remembers doubting that the poor apprentice had ever seen an actual ruby; she knows she hasn’t, not then and not now either.

At six o’clock, Thomas had managed a garbled moan, the last on a long string of agonized screams. His voice had given out, but he had clung to consciousness until the bitter end, blinking up at her through glazed blue eyes. The baby had cried out at six thirty, and Thomas had looked in the direction of the cradle, weary resignation on his face. He’d looked, she’d seen him, and she had wanted nothing more than to bring the baby to him; had been afraid, though. So afraid. She’s afraid now, with his dead weight pressing against her thighs, against her swollen belly, but she can’t bring herself to move.

He’d come courting almost immediately after their first meeting. Had it been love at first sight? She can’t remember. Probably not; she was young and silly then, dreaming of running off with an actor from the stage, and a blacksmith’s apprentice was no actor. But Thomas had been such a charmer, and he had never quit at anything. A little wedding at the parish church, no money for lavish things, and her father had given her away two weeks shy of her fifteenth birthday. Remembers him taking her home after the ceremony, excited and bashful and more beautiful than anything she had even seen.

Now, his hair is matted with sweat, and his skin is marred by black blotches. The first of the buboes had appeared under his arm, so that he could hardly move it without crying out his agony, and although the apothecary had recommended scalding it with an onion roasted in the fire, it hadn’t burst; the onion had done nothing but cause undo pain. 

They’d painted the door that afternoon, but she had been so worried about Thomas, about little Grace, and the baby, that the reality had yet to fully sink in. The second of the buboes rose in his groin, but he was not himself then, her darling husband; incoherent and raving. 

He’d been like that for the next ten hours, all through the night and the day, before the stupor had set in; before he had worn himself out. She touches his face now, and his skin feels cold already. Sucks in a deep breath and tries not to cry. 

Grace wanders over at eight o’clock. She doesn’t know where her daughter has been—with the baby perhaps—but her maternal instincts rightfully emerge when her daughter reaches one chubby hand towards her father’s arm. A quick swat makes the toddler cry.

“Father,” Grace tries, clutching at her fingers, red from her mother’s swat.

She shakes her head. “Not now, Gracie. You can’t touch him.”

At eight thirty, she hears the rumbling of the carts; hears the ominous shout of, “Bring out your dead!” She extracts herself from Thomas—from Thomas’ _body_ \--and goes to the door. 

“My husband,” she tells the guard at the door, trying not to see the cart overflowing corpses. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the red cross on the wood; the guard doesn’t want to enter. Covers his mouth with a filthy handkerchief and doesn’t pass too close. She is a bringer of death now, she and precious Gracie and the baby. She knows what happens to shut-ins.

After the body is gone, she opens the window and tries to rid the room of the miasma she’s been warned about. Gracie has forgiven her for the swat and comes to sit in her lap; presses chubby fingers against the mound of her mother’s stomach, against the child Thomas will never meet.

She looks out the window and thinks it’s a month shy of Thomas’ twenty fifth birthday. Closes her eyes when the cart rolls past.

**

The baby goes next.

It happens with disorientating speed, unlike Thomas who had lingered for over a day. The baby wakes her screaming halfway through the night and she sends Grace to the corner, away away _away_. Takes the baby in her arms and moves to the window, hoping for clean air, hoping for _something_ , but she can feel the lump near her baby’s tiny thigh even through the swaddling.

“Dear Lord,” she begins, and can’t finish. Rocks the baby and cries along with him; wipes away his tears with her sleeve; with the end of his blanket. Gracie cries in the corner, and she says, “Stay put, darling. George will be with your father soon. It'll all be over soon.”

She tries to feed him two hours after the tears start, but George is too weak to suckle. She remembers when he was born, remembers his lusty cries and beautiful gurgles; remembers Thomas’ joy at a son. George’s birth had nearly ended her; it had been a long, painful labour, but the first glance at her boy had made it all worth it. She would gladly have died for him, for Gracie, for the baby in her womb right now, so soon after George’s birth. Too soon, Thomas had worried. “Too _blessed_!” she’d said, laughing, but she’d been scared too. 

They’d laughed together, she and her mother, over what a lusty man Thomas was. Possibly not love at first sight, not for such a silly girl, but she had loved him soon enough after; had never seen a reason to drive him to tavern wenches, to the painted girls near the stage. She’d never turned Thomas away, not once, not ever, and he had called her his wanton wife, even though wantonness is a sin; what a lucky man, he. 

A good marriage, her mother had said. Look at you, girl, only seventeen and with a daughter, a son, and another on the way! Gracie at fifteen, dear George at seventeen, and the baby would come before her eighteenth winter, she knew. 

“Please, dear Lord, let me die instead of my George.”

But the Lord isn’t listening. 

The baby wheezes once the strength to cry is gone, but she has enough tears for the both of them. She bathes his little face with grief and when he goes too still, she pretends she doesn’t notice. Holds him tightly, so tightly, and when the guard comes—who told him?—he has to tear George from her arms and strike her when she goes after him. She’s mad with grief, positively crazy with it, and goes to the window on her hands and knees. 

Sees the guard chuck her baby on top of the pile, throw him on up by one little leg, and she is howling so loudly that a man passing by beneath her window chances a glance up; risks looking at a shut-in. Thinks so hard on George, wants him so badly, that her breasts leak, and she makes herself sick.

Gracie risks coming close to her mother; she grabs her up tight before making her take off her dress. Goes over every inch of pale perfect skin, looking for rosy rings and rashes. She finds none, and pulls her daughter as close to her as she can; they cry together near the window, paralyzed with fear and with grief.

“He can’t have you,” she promises her daughter. “The Lord has your father and your brother, but I will not let him have you. Not yet.”

**

A blissful two weeks pass.

Thomas had squirreled away their meager savings inside of one of her stockings in her bureau and every day she takes them out and counts the coins in her lap. They were supposed to be to bribe the guard with, a precaution Thomas had thought of when the Pryce family down the lane had been shut in; she had not wanted to think of such things. 

They had done everything, her little family. Worn the proper amulets and talismans, written out ABRACADABRA on parchment paper and tucked it into their pockets, even though that was the Devil’s work and everyone knew it. They’d smoked tobacco constantly, even though it upset her stomach and upset her period to see Gracie with the pipe. She’d tried to keep the place clean, periodically opening and closing the window depending on where she thought the miasma was at the time. She’d tried _everything_.

Or almost everything.

She’s a pious woman. Hers is a god-fearing family. She hadn’t meant to hear stories, but people talked, and Mary Goodman one house over had told her in whispers about the women who went from house to house to assist the dying; told her of horrible old women, crippled by poverty and greed. Mary Goodman had spoken to one called Elizabeth Browne, and Mary had said that she was a witch. Had given Mary a protection spell, and Mary had told her how it would do the Finch family good to see Elizabeth.

Naturally, she had recoiled at the idea, and cut all ties with Mary Goodman, the devil-woman who associated with one of Satan’s whores. But she had watched, hadn’t she, day in and day out by the window, and there is no red cross on Mary’s door. No one in Mary’s family has fallen ill; on the contrary, every one of them looks, at least from a distance, robust with health. 

In her family, Thomas is gone. George is gone. Only she and Gracie are left. And nothing is working.

The coins in her lap are meager. Thomas had meant for her to run, but her time is near, she can feel it. The baby in her womb has dropped, and is a constant pressure on her pelvis. She’s huge, absolutely huge, all breasts and swollen limbs. It is a chore to walk across the room, to bend to help Gracie in and out of her clothes for plague checks, let alone attempt to flee to the country. Perhaps she could bribe the guard to take Gracie out, to take Gracie somewhere, but she doesn’t trust the guard, and even if she did, there’s not enough money to induce someone to risk the plague. Not enough money to save Gracie.

Right now, Gracie is playing with her doll underneath the window. Babbling to it without any real joy, but her mother doesn’t have time to worry about her happiness. Happiness can wait until after the plague passes; after they survive.

She only worries about ensuring they survive it.

Not enough to get Gracie out. Not enough most likely to even guarantee that a midwife will enter to help her through the birth. She will die here, she knows this; die alone in the agony of childbirth. The baby won’t have a chance and, without her, neither will Gracie.

Her time is coming, and she feels the panic rising in her chest at the mere thought.

**

Gracie’s forehead is hot to the touch the next week. She whimpers when she plays and then doesn’t want to do anything but sleep, no matter how much her mother entices her. Her mother’s lap is too full of unborn baby to be all that comfortable, but the toddler cuddles into her breast as best she can, and clings to a handful of her mother’s dress.

As for her mother, she is frantic. She strips Gracie and finds a rash. Tries not to panic—it could be from the fever—and fails. Gracie is her first child, her precious little daughter, and the thought—

She wraps her tightly in blankets, and then changes her mind. Thomas had died in their bed, and George in the cradle. There’s two blankets in her chest knit for the unborn baby and she wraps her daughter in those and superstitiously strips the bed before placing her in it. Gracie’s hot to the touch and clammy and what if—

Good Lord, forgive her, because she cannot lose her daughter.

There is no time. Thomas had gone in a day and a half; George in mere hours. If Gracie goes… oh God, if Grace has the plague…

She’ll be alone, left alone, and there will be no reason to live, not even the unborn baby who is right now kicking insistently at her belly, because he will die soon too, and then—

Thomas and George and _not_ Gracie.

Feeling the pressure of tears behind her eyes, she goes to the bureau and dumps half of the coins into her palm. 

“Forgive me, Thomas,” she murmurs, rolling their weight in her palm. Checks on Gracie and smoothes a hand through damp ringlets before turning her back on her daughter. Her heart is hammering hard and she feels ill when she takes to the stairs.

The guard will only open the door a crack. She sees his face, ugly and pockmarked, and starts to cry quite unbidden. 

“Please,” she begs, extending her hand through the crack in the door. He jumps back from her presence but hesitates when he sees the glint of the coins. “Please, sir, find me Elizabeth Browne. Mary Goodman down the lane knows her location. Please. These are yours if you bring her to me.” 

_Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned_.

Nearly blinded by her tears, she shakes her hand hard, so that the money clanks and jingles together. “Please, sir! Yours if you find her.”

He eyes her suspiciously; then pockets her money. Spits on the ground, near her entranceway. 

“What should I tell her you be needing?” he questions, voice gruff. 

She swallows hard. “My daughter is sick. I need her help. Tell her to come to the sign of the anvil. Tell her I am Mary Goodman’s neighbour, Ruby Finch, widow of Thomas Finch the blacksmith. _Please_.”

He goes soon after that, shoving her roughly away from the door and barring it loudly. She rushes upstairs again and joins Gracie on the bed, pulling her daughter’s shivering frame close.

Gracie says, “Mother” on a raspy whimper.

“It’s going to be alright,” she murmurs. “I’m going to save you. He’s not going to get you, not yet.”

Elizabeth Browne, Satan’s whore, comes at four thirty. She knows because she hears the crier announce the time, voice echoing hale and hearty down the abandoned streets; knows because she’s been watching the sun dip lower out the only window in the room they occupy above the deceased Thomas Finch’s small shop.

**Author's Note:**

> Supernatural does not belong to me.


End file.
